Tilly Twin flying her large genoa and small genoa staysail, on the way into Cuttyhunk. Photo courtesy Pat Brogan
August 2023
By Pat Brogan
We started cruising in Tilly Twin, the 35.5’ Laurent Giles-designed ocean racer in the spring of 1962, when I was nine years old. We cruised the same harbors that we previously did while sailing Flame, the Herreshoff 23 that kicked off our family cruising tradition, but with much greater confidence when offshore.
During a weekend cruise to Cuttyhunk – it was either the early spring, or perhaps late fall, 1962 (all I know was it was cold), we happened across the previous owner of Tilly Twin, Horace Beck, in the middle of the anchorage. In those days, anchoring in Cuttyhunk was the only option for visiting yachtsmen. Horace saw Tilly Twin motoring through the channel and hailed us to raft up. With Tilly’s 2-cylinder, horizontally opposed Coventry Victor engine (with a belt-driven reduction “gear,” folding prop and no reverse) it was always an adventure during docking maneuvers. But we managed to come alongside Horace’s China Bird. It was an opportunity for us to see his new boat and for him to reminisce about his old one. Horace probably also saw an opportunity to get some easier transportation ashore, as he was cruising with a difficult-to-row rubber raft as a tender.
I had heard his name as the previous owner of Tilly Twin, but I had no idea what was in store for me when I met him in person. His appearance epitomized the proverbial old salt. He was dressed in a traditional Irish knit wool sweater and knit cap, his sailing de rigueur for cool weather, and he was sporting a salt and pepper beard and mustache, bushy eyebrows, and he was smoking a pipe. As a young sailor I was immediately enthralled by Horace Beck.
I spent the afternoon ferrying him around in Tilly’s custom built pram, which was designed to be carried on the cabin top in order to meet the RORC offshore racing requirements. Although I felt I was a skillful and competent rower, Horace taught me how to feather my oars, and how feathering made a huge difference in the effort of rowing into the wind. It was a bonding experience.
Later, we settled in for dinner aboard our respective boats. Of course the grownups started the evening with libations; my dad’s favorite was a highball. I’m imagining that Horace was working on an Irish whiskey. In any case, the adults were nicely lubricated for an evening of swapping sea stories. Horace was a world traveler, ocean racer and an academic in the field of literature, specializing in folklore of the sea as well as Native American lore. There was a woman aboard with him, who I assumed was his wife. They both loved to talk and contribute to each others’ stories; they interrupted each other a lot. There were stories with mermaids, King Neptune, giant whirlpools, natives, and ghosts. It was about the best entertainment we Brogan kids had ever had aboard, and the bonding experience was cemented.
Horace’s boat was a brand new ocean-racing sloop, built in Taiwan. China Bird had bright red topsides, a mahogany cabin top and doghouse, and traditional lines with a slightly swept shear and modest overhangs. I was shocked when I was told that China Bird was a Laurent Giles design. I only knew two boats by that designer, and the ugly duckling (that was my view at that age) appearance of Tilly Twin and her near sister Myth of Malham made China Bird’s traditional lines seem out of place, given my naïve impression of Giles’ style.
The other thing that I erroneously assumed about Laurent Giles was that all his yacht designs were designed to be fast ocean racers. That belief was corroborated by all the accolades that my dad heaped on the Myth of Malham, as well as observing how easy it seemed for us to catch boats bigger than Tilly when going to weather.
The next day, Dad and Horace agreed to have a friendly race back to Newport. I assumed that Horace would leave us in the dust with his brand new, shiny and sleek yacht. We got under way and the race started as we passed the Middle Ground buoy. There was a brisk wind out of the southwest. We were close-hauled on a port tack, flying our big Yankee and smaller staysail with full main. We started pulling ahead of China Bird, in earnest. Horace’s crew consisted of the two of them, while Tilly’s crew had my mom and dad, plus me and my older sister Colleen (our two other sisters were too small that year to work the decks). Colleen and I handled the foredeck, including dealing with hanked-on headsails (I had never seen a furling headsail back then). So maybe in that regard we had an advantage, but Horace was a world-class ocean racer, and neither boat had to tack once, to stand the Brenton Reef buoy. The wind was steadily freshening as we went by Hen and Chickens Reef.
Tilly had a number of cotton sails; the big Yankee was one of them. As we pulled further and further ahead of China Bird, I began to feel a terrible empathetic embarrassment for Horace. Then, the hanks, attached to the luff-rope of the old Yankee with mildewed cotton thread, started parting from the luff, one at a time, in rapid succession! Colleen and I scrambled to the foredeck to drop the sail, bag it, and get the smaller Yankee hoisted and flying. As we did this, I think I was dragging my feet a little, playing up the wave action as we pounded to weather exiting Buzzards Bay. I wanted to give Horace a sporting chance, if I could. We finally got the smaller Yankee flying and the ride was a bit more comfortable with the reduced sail area. Tilly was boiling along even faster now.
We pulled into Brenton Cove and took the liberty of grabbing Horace’s mooring – just off the Ida Lewis Yacht Club – with the assumption that he would raft up when he arrived. It was more than half an hour before Horace rounded Fort Adams. His sails were already stowed and he motored straight to the southernmost nook of the cove and grabbed someone else’s mooring. My dad was beaming with pride, of course, and he was convinced that Horace avoided us due to his embarrassment at being bested by a less experienced offshore sailor. Seemed that way to me, too. But rather than joining in Dad’s revelry, I felt bad for Horace.
We spent the night in Newport, but the next day, we had to head home. Before we got underway, Horace came motoring by, apparently headed for the docks in Newport Harbor. As he passed us, he took his pipe out of his mouth and growled, “Thanks for the sailing lesson,” and motored on.
It was after observing by dad’s seamanship that Horace invited him to crew aboard China Bird, in the Bermuda Race – but I’m not certain which year. It was either later in that same summer of ’62 if our raft-up was in the spring, or it was the ’64 race. From that, I conclude that if Horace ever had any sore feelings about our race home from Cuttyhunk, he must have forgiven it all by then. For reasons unknown to me, there were no other encounters between us and Horace while cruising. It may have been that he moved his cruising grounds back to his previous Marblehead digs, where we first got acquainted with Tilly Twin. All I can do is add that to the list of sailing questions that I forgot to ask my dad, before he passed in 2019. I feel extremely fortunate to have spent my formative years sailing aboard Tilly Twin. To this day, I just can’t help sailing my own boat the way we always sailed Tilly Twin, pressing canvas for hull speed or more, if the wind allowed it.
The boat was capable of handling anything that we dared to go out in. That style of sailing was what I thought was normal, growing up. We always marveled at how, when the wind was as we liked it, there were barely any other boats out for us to chase. My current Stellar 30, Lapwing, though smaller and lighter than Tilly, gives me a chance to enjoy an occasional “rip-roaring sail” as my wife puts it, and I’m still chasing every boat I can, when going to weather.
Bristol, R.I., native Pat Brogan sails his 1984 Stellar 30, Lapwing, with his wife Mary. They occasionally make it out as far as Cuttyhunk.
